Ed Toutant
Edward "Ed" Earl Toutant (December 27, 1951 - November 6, 2018), a resident from Austin, Texas, was a contestant on the U.S. version of the show on January 28-31, 2001. After originally winning only $1,000 due to a bad question, he was invited back to the show on September 7, 2001 and he would then walk away with $1,860,000, the amount he was playing for on his first run, because at that time the show had an increasing bonus of $10,000 on top of the $1,000,000 top prize for each episode there was no millionaire, as there had been a drought of top-prize winners for five months. Ed died of brain cancer at the age of 66, but family and friends remember the life of the local trivia champion and active member of Austin’s arts scene. WWTBAM Run Fastest Finger Question From the 8 remaining contestants, 6 got it right, but Ed (with a time of 3.68 seconds) was the fastest to correctly answer B-C-A-D, making it into the Hot Seat. Ed's Run to $1,860,000 Originally, Ed was deemed to have given the wrong answer, having to walk away with $1,000. However, after his run was over and doing some research, he discovered that the experiment had been done in Scotland, not England; and that an Oxford professor, Dr. Marc Knight, had been doing research glowing tomato plants, thus rendering his original answer valid.http://www.triviahalloffame.com/edtoutant.php After sending the show an email detailing this, they decided to bring him back, to give him a new $16,000 question, and to re-award him the 'Ask the Audience' lifeline he used in his flawed question. Furthermore, during his original run, there was an accumulating jackpot that increased by $10,000 for each successive show in which none of the contestants could answer all fifteen questions correctly. So, to be fair, the show gave him a chance to win the million dollars plus the $860,000 jackpot bonus he was at that time playing for; for a grand total of $1,860,000. Gallery US Ed Toutant.png US Ed Toutant F.jpg Tountant Ed millionaire 2016.jpg|2016 2773BF72-20C2-4FF5-817A-F9DE950D7083.jpeg|Ed on Jeopardy! Trivia *Ed Toutant's $1,860,000 win made him the second biggest winner on a game show at the time, just behind Kevin Olmstead, a contestant who played in the interim between Toutant's flawed and final run who won $2,180,000 ($1,180,000 came from the progressive jackpot that kept on going after Toutant's flawed question). *He was a FF contestant on January 2000. This means that Ed Toutant has appeared on the show on 4 different episodes. *He won $11,401 in his solitary Jeopardy! victory in 1989, finishing second the next day. *He was a contestant on GSN's game show Grand Slam in 2007. Seeded fourth into the tournament, he lost to Leszek Pawlowicz in the first round. *Ed appeared on Millionaire a second time in 2005, as the Phone-a-Friend lifeline for Kelly Buszek. *Ed appeared on Millionaire a third time (and the final time before his death in November 2018) on September 22, 2016 as the Plus One lifeline for Wayne Schiff. *Ed was the last top prize winner in the original primetime series, as well as the last contestant to see the final question, until Ken Basin's fatal $1 million question flunk out incident on the final episode of the 10th Anniversary Celebration event in 2009. Sources Toutant, Ed Toutant, Ed Category:Phone-a-Friend friends Category:Plus One Category:U.S. contestants from Texas (season 1) Category:$1,000,000 winners from season 1 (U.S.) Category:Appeared on Jeopardy! Category:Deceased contestants Category:Deceased winners Category:Reached question 15 with bonus instituted